Casey Seiler: Nation's Tide pod challenge

Casey Seiler

Published 6:02 pm, Saturday, January 20, 2018

Photo: TONY CENICOLA

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**EMBARGO: No electronic distribution, Web posting or street sales before 12:01 a.m. ET Monday, Nov. 10, 2014. No exceptions for any reasons. EMBARGO set by source.** Concentrated laundry detergent packets, often called pods, sold by the brands Tide, left, and All, in New York, Nov. 7, 2014. Researchers report that in 2012 and 2013 more than 17,000 children under age 6 ate, or inhaled the contents of, or squirted concentrated liquid into their eyes from laundry packets, which critics say look too much like candy or teething toys. (Tony Cenicola/The New York Times) ORG XMIT: XNYT116 less

When I was a kid — and yes, I seem to have reached the point in life when I can kick off a column with that Andy Rooney-ish clause — the most intriguing ingestion challenge involved putting a few packets of Pop Rocks ("The Planet's No. 1 Selling Popping Candy") in your mouth and then swigging a can of Coke.

The elementary school chattering classes had it on good authority that this carbonated concoction had ruptured the stomach of a kid in Ohio, or maybe Illinois. An alternate narrative held that one brave soul — in Texas? Russia? — had tried to keep the brew in his mouth and his head had exploded like the guy in that movie "Scanners," though this was a minority opinion.

These days, a far more nonfictional youth peril is being presented by single-use detergent pods, which in the latest example of social media run amok are being consumed by young people at an alarming rate as part of a viral phenomenon known as the Tide Pod Challenge.

I will openly admit that, like many fans of chewy candies such as Dots, Chuckles and the minty ones that go by the ethnically suspect name of Mexican Hats, I find these pods to be absolutely delicious-looking. Be fair: Don't they look like something Gene Wilder's Willie Wonka might have unleashed on the world? I have on a number of occasions stopped in the act of loading laundry and stared at the tipped-over plastic bucket they come in, imagining it as a sort of day-glo horn of plenty. So far, I have resisted.

Others have given in. According to the American Association of Poison Control Centers, 2016 saw 39 reported cases of intentional exposure to detergent pods by teenagers, with cases of actual ingestion representing all but a few of those types of exposure. In 2017, the number rose to 53. The group reported last week that in the first 15 days of 2018 alone, poison control centers had already handled 39 such cases.

In response, YouTube and Facebook have pulled down videos — some no doubt satiric, others more genuine — of young people chomping on the pods, masticating them like poisonous marshmallows until blue goo dribbles out. Tide has been dogged in its social-media war against the misuse of its product; the company produced a low-tech clip of noted deep thinker and amateur toxicologist Rob Gronkowski of the New England Patriots warning people not to eat the product or use it for anything other than, y'know, cleaning clothes.

I know what you're thinking: Who does Gronk or any of us think we are to stand in the way of the majestic process we call natural selection? But perhaps this is a rather cold response. Teenagers, after all, do stupid things as they stumble toward maturity.

Adults do careless and questionable things, as well. For examples that don't involve concentrated detergent delivery systems, consider the behavior of President Donald Trump over the period of time in which the pod-ingestion story was bubbling to the top of the mainstream media like soapy bedsheets agitating in warm water.

This was the period in which Trump disparaged Haiti and the entirety of Africa as sources of immigrants during a meeting with congressional leaders.

It also overlapped with the revelation that Trump's lawyer had, a few weeks before the 2016 election, created a Delaware-listed limited liability company for the express purpose of secretly paying $130,000 in hush money to an adult film actress who claimed that she had a liaison with Trump a decade ago.

(Here's a tidbit in keeping with this column's general theme of consumption: In an interview with In Touch magazine, Stormy Daniels stated that Trump is "obsessed with sharks. Terrified of sharks.")

His former top policy advisor, the now excommunicated Steve Bannon, appeared before Congress in closed-door testimony but refused to answer questions about his work during Trump's transition, apparently relying on a beyond-dubious interpretation of executive privilege.

In a world where this passes for normal behavior, why are we puzzled by teens chewing on cleaning products?

Before we disparage the youth of America for this new oral fixation, let's remember that almost a majority of voting-age Americans voted for Trump, an act that many might see as the political equivalent of stuffing an attractive but highly toxic substance into your mouth just to see how long you can take it.